The young Lichfield City Leopards U11 side picked up a victory in their first game of the season against Hurley Kings Demons.
Stychbrook Fields was in perfect condition for the nine-a-side clash, with the Leopards enjoying a full squad and subs while the visitors were without subs giving Lichfield an early advantage in the warm weather.
Lichfield started with a downhill advantage and very quickly Owen Bourne scored a great goal from a free kick. Hurley pulled it back a few minutes later to make it 1-1.
The referee awarded a penalty in favour of the Leopards and Patrick Wyatt planted it coolly in the back of the net to make 2-1.
Further goals meant the half time score was 4-1 in favour of the Leopards.
Moving into the second half, Hurley did look tired and did a fantastic job of defending a persistent Lichfield attack made up of Thom Mills, Jack Wright, George Lacy, and Owen Bourne.
With a weakness down the left side, Bourne came through every time and put three more goals in the net to make his a four goal contribution to the game. Excellent balls from midfielders Noah Rhodes, Patrick Wyatt and George Lacy made for a hat-trick from new signing Thom Mills.
Probably the best goal of the game came from Hurley into the top corner of Jackowski’s goal.
As well as the attacking positives, there were plenty of strong performances in defence too. Liam Hodgeson – another new player – and Drew Orme played with resilience and battled really hard to feed the ball back out to midfield. Josh Sawyer and Josh Armitage are a credit to the team, making great decisions with excellent timing.
For once, Leopards keeper Hubert Jackowski, found himself with a lot of time on his hands, but seemed to work well with the new pitch size and made precise goal kicks, giving the Leopards an advantage both downhill and uphill after the break.
In the dying minutes Josh Armitage came forward to take another successful penalty for the Leopards as they wrapped up a 10-2 win to go top of the Tamworth U11 League Two.
Lichfield City Leopards Man of the Match was George Lacy.
Click below to see pictures from the game:
